We started around 8:30 from Bangalore with Amol in my car n Siva in Venkat's car. We were riding very fast on a traffic infested day. Packed bikes were in the back side of the car. Had lunch at Salem and that is the time when we had rice for lunch until 30th Dec, 2013! We reached Trichy around 4 i believe. Collected the keys from the reception and settled in the room and assembled the bikes.
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| Giant SCR 2 and BSA Cruze in Duster |
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| Lunch on 21st Dec, 2013 @ Salem |
Tour briefing, food, excellent support from bhai of probikers. New friends n elongated introduction on Day 0. The way Vaz and Venky started the presentation and with the information they were providing we were happy that we are on right track and tour. Best thing was the transfer of Luggage from hotel to next hotel. Everyone of us felt it was a great idea, including 4 times veteran of TFN, Siva. All personalized stickers, ID cards and goodies in the bag were really wonderful. Ate awesome food and settled down in the Room with Amol. We were looking at the elevation profile and thinking of a strategy and we laughed it off.
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| Vaz doing the Tour briefing |
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| Briefing continued... |
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| Siva capturing the moments and Venkat is almost asleep there! |
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| Yummy Soup, Idiappam, Chicken Curry and Fish for the Dinner - Day 0 |
In the morning there was a small send off event organized and collector of trichy was chairing the same. First day of a long tour and we were nervous and few kms ticked off and we were off on to the Kulithalai road. Kulithalai ride was dangerous in terms of traffic and a bit narrow roads but myself and Venkat kept on real nice pace. Siva stopped and waved at us for the Tea at around 10th km which was of typical SIVA types. We thought to continue further and some time later on the roads, Rakesh and Bhaskar caught us and we were doing a nice pace pulling each other for some time in the highway before joining the bridge and go to the other side towards Namakkal to get into Kolli Hills via valaiyapatti.
In this bridge we started our first photo session and Rakesh started to have all of us in MAMIL poses (Middle Aged Men In Lycra). Yes do that and again we start pedalling towards Kolli hills to which we have already offered prayers, while coming to Trichy itself!
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| Trichy Collector addressing the gathering - Day 1 |
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| We were really happy there! |
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| Kaveri... |
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| MAMIL Pose - Muthu whats cooking! |
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| In TOT jersey there... |
After this initial ride, we have reached the time station at around 50th km mark. If you have great people around, you will not feel the tiredness, yes we had awesome support staff, not much in numbers but filled with great desire to take care of the cyclists over the tour. And they had done it without much fuss. There were feedbacks and we have shared with the organizers and i am sure they will be able to implement it in the next tour. After a great deal of eatables at the time station, we started again towards Valaiyapatti to reach the base of the Great Kolli hills!
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| That's our Roadie stand - Mine and Vaibhav's bikes balancing each others! |
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| @ Support station 1 |
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| Siva engrossed in Nutrition |
We took a right turn towards Valaiyappatti and the route was very scenic. Myself, Sapeksh, Siva, Rakesh, Vaibhav, Venkat and Bhaskar were riding together. Totally we could not find the tender coconut shop which Siva kept on asking us. So much that Bhaskar started to check up on the villagers to get the coconut directly from the tree itself, but no luck and Siva is getting wilder by each passing Km! And after an energizing photo session, we are back again to the Kolli base. Here we had food and started climbing Kolli hills after good lunch and slight rest.
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| Road side snaps without disturbing almost no traffic!!! |
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| As and when possible single snaps! |
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| Up ahead is Kolli hills... |
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| Venkat... |
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| Bhaskar with his nice bike.. |
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| Venkat and Amol cooling off at base. |
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| Venkat... |
After a while we started climbing. I was trialing Venkat and he had gone ahead. Simply too much of Hairpin bends to climb and get distracted! Siva caught up with me by 10th km. With Murderous rage Siva called for break at 10th km up the bends! We were thinking of time station but we don't see any! Now what do you do, amidst of going towards 70th hair pin bend! That's what we did, took a break at 12th km. Cursing every one that break was over pretty quick... So from then on Siva was talking non stop and i was nodding head non,stop. He was even upset that i was not responding. Folks who know me would know that i am not much of a talker while riding especially when climbing! But this day changed that and thanks to Siva for that. Not that i changed the same day but yeah change was there..
Even after reaching the 70th hairpin bend, we never knew where the Nallathambi resort was. Just there was a big descent after the climb but i was not convinced! After climbing all through, I don wanna go back due to wrong route, but successfully we reached the resort. Awesome ride on the Day 1 of TOT. Vaibhav, Rakesh, Venkat, Bhaskar, Sanjay, Anjali and couple of others had reached already. We were welcomed with a welcome drink and our luggages were intact in our rooms. After a nice shower went for a recovery walk and then had recovery drinks as well:) to end the day and prepare for the next day after a real nice dinner there in Nallathambi resort. Rest of the story to continue in other blogs to come. Really interesting rest of the days ahead especially with Yercaud killer climb which i should say we had slightly underestimated!!! Amol also reached within some time and with no amount of training he had, he did really well in the Day 1.
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| After climbing all the hair pin bends and with Siva's lovely bike! |
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| Siva the conqueror.. |
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| Later realized that was a bad idea, but yeah state of mind! |
Day 1 Stats:
Destination:
Kolli Hills
Distance covered:
134kms
Elevation Gain:
1464m
Elevation Loss:
415m
For Lunch:
Egg Dosa, Omlette (Keep an eye on this stat particularly)
Also read:
Day 2 :
http://www.runmjvrun.blogspot.in/2014/01/tour-of-tamilnadu-2013-day-2.html
Day 3:
http://www.runmjvrun.blogspot.in/2014/01/tour-of-tamilnadu-2013-day-3.html
Day 4:
http://www.runmjvrun.blogspot.in/2014/01/tour-of-tamilnadu-2013-day-4-rest-fish.html
Day 5:
http://www.runmjvrun.blogspot.in/2014/01/tour-of-tamilnadu-day-5-from-hogenakkal.html
Day 6:
http://www.runmjvrun.blogspot.in/2014/01/tour-of-tamilnadu-day-6-yelagiri-to.html
Day 7:
http://www.runmjvrun.blogspot.in/2014/01/tour-of-tamilnadu-day-7-most-scenic-day.html
Day 8:
http://www.runmjvrun.blogspot.in/2014/02/tour-of-tamilnadu-day-8-kallakurichi-to.html
_MJV_
